The Sublime Wit And Wisdom Of Jarvis Cocker

On being the life and soul: “To tell you the truth I honestly don’t like myself. I bore the crap out of myself, I really do.”

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On being asked to stand in for The Stone Roses at Glastonbury, 1995: “You’ll find us in Yellow Pages actually, under bands for hire. We’re the supersubs of modern music.”

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On disappointing magicians: “David Copperfield was at the Versace party. I saw him waiting for the lift and I wanted to go over and say, ‘What are you waiting for the list for? You can just bloody well fly up the stairs!’ But I didn’t.”

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Music – Pulp – Wembley Arena

On essential rave attire: “I had me hair in bunches. Somebody’d bought me these bobbles which were see-through teddy bears’ heads with beads inside. I had a cagoule on as well. So I looked like some demented Girl Guide instructress.”

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On utter earnestness in sartorial matters: “I’d like to go on record as saying I’ve never worn anything as a joke.”

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On what’s definitely going to be on his tombstone: “I don’t really want it engraved on me tombstone that I was the person who waggled his arse at Michael Jackson.”

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On trouser signposts: “Unfortunately men get erections, you see. And people have so little direction in their lives, if your cock points in a certain direction, then you follow it… you can’t argue with a hard-on.”

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On the paparazzi: “They’ve all got the same excuse: ‘Oh I’ve got a wife and family to support’. I say, ‘Well, then support them by being something other than a shitsucker.'”

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On his divine credentials: “I am not Jesus though I have the same initials” (‘Dishes’)

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On being a pillar of the community: “I’ve never liked being responsible. I’ve always striven to be as irresponsible as I possible can.”

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On that incident that’s totally going to be engraved on his tombstone: “I’m not even religious. But when someone appears onstage and wants to be Jesus, I think it’s a bit off. But I’d love to kiss a Rabbi…”

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On being spaffed out of your gourd at 80s raves: “I really thought it would have quite a wide social effect. I thought, even though people were only being nice to each other ‘cos they were off their heads, once they’d realised things were better if you socialised on that sort of level, it would have some change on society.”

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On artistic realism: “For me to write about ‘Yes I saw her in the chip shop/And I said get yer top off‘ or something like that would be pathetic because I haven’t been in a chippy for ages.”

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On being young, British, bored and skint: “You will never understand how it feels to live your life with no meaning or control” (‘Common People’)

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On acting the part: “You’re constantly going, ‘Would a pop star do this? Would a pop star go in this shop? Would a pop star still go in Oxfam and have a root through shit?'”

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On saying no no no to rehab: “I haven’t been in rehab, no. It’s too expensive and I’m too mean.”

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On the ‘knobhead’ index: “I’ll carry on until somebody tells me I’m a knobhead and then I’ll decide whether I’m a knobhead or whether I’m still alright.”

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On going to great lengths to avoid your own songs: “I’d rather suck a dog’s knob than listen to one of my own records.”

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On fat children: “Oh, the parents are the problem/Giving birth to maggots without the sense to become flies/So pander to your pampered little princess/Of such enormous size” (‘Fat Children’)

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On living on the edge, man: “Sometimes there’s a thrill to be had from doing something which isn’t good for you and might, in the end, destroy you.”

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On class war: “I couldn’t live with the middle classes. It’s a stultifying, bloodless, slow-death experience.”

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On fame, fame, fatal fame: “You realise it doesn’t take you into a magical land where everybody’s your servant.”

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On socks: “You’ve either got to have no socks or long socks that reach your knee. This is going to sound very pretentious but I bought them from a shop in Rome called Schostal. It’s very good. I have to buy about 20 pairs at once. They’re fine cotton in all different colours.”

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On various shades of pop music: “I like pop music but then I wish that it would try harder with what it talks about. It doesn’t have to be dark but life is dark, isn’t it? Let’s face it.”

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On joining a Greenpeace mission to the Arctic: “Not that I’m a massive expert, but when I heard that they wanted to dig it up, I thought, ‘Hold on a minute – that’s not good.'”

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On the prescience of romance: “I wrote this song two hours before we met/I didn’t know your name or what you looked like yet” (‘Something Changed’)

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On David Cameron saying he’d seen his bum: “I’d just like to point out that if anybody cares to look at the video evidence, at no point was my bare backside revealed. So therefore the fact he says he’s seen it totally negates the credence of what he said in the previous part of the answer about derivatives and futures.”

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On Scott Walker abuse: “I remember seeing some people sniffing cocaine off the cover of ‘Scott 4’ and thinking, ‘That’s my favourite record and that just doesn’t seem right.'”

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On saucy fanmail: “I got a pair of red, synthetic satin women’s pants through the post the other day with a phone number on. That was quite strange. I haven’t tried the phone number. In times of stress I may.”

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On penetrating your audience: “If you perform on a stage or you sing a song, it’s kind of like penetrating somebody. It’s like having sex with somebody – but, obviously, from a great distance.”

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On the sweaty 1970s: “I like the 70s because it was a bit tacky; people would be wearing vinyl jackets and getting a bit sweaty. I don’t know if it’s a new scene or not, but at least the 70s were sexy. In the 80s people just watched Antiques Roadshow.”

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On skinny sex: “I once went out with a very thin woman. It just didn’t work. Just this jarring of bones like two skeletons wrestling in the dark. I prefer a nice full-figured partner to tuck into.”

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On his devastating looks: “If I do become a sex symbol, I’ll be overcoming my natural disabilities – I’m lanky, with bad eyesight. In reality I look more like an ugly girl.”

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On the usefulness of making a racket: “Noise is an easy thing to hide behind. If you make a lot of noise and shout behind that, nobody can tell what you’re singing.”

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On separating life and art: “I don’t go seeking out strange sexual experiences every day of the week.”

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On Johnny Borrell’s spreadsheets: “Reading an interview with Razorlight is just like reading The Economist.”

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On how to drink sensibly: “Never mix cider and red wine. That’s one of my life lessons.”

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On the perils of taking pop stars at face value: “People who make good music aren’t necessarily nice people.”

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On actual misfits: “Misfits should coagulate, or congregate, and take over the world, with us at the helm.”

On optimum drug-taking periods: “During your 20s you’ve done quite a lot, so in order to make them interesting again you might as well have drugs ‘cos your brain’s formed, you can squish it about a bit and you’ve got more chance of not going mad.”

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On life ending in pain and degradation: “You can have the same circumstances and it’s a question of the colour of your mind. My mind takes the morbid tack. That’s not so bad ‘cos ultimately you accept that life ends in pain and degradation.”

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On how awful you are: “If they pulled this whole place down it would still look much better than you” (‘Bar Italia’)

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On pithy Wet Wet Wet fans: “I got a letter addressed to me just the other day from this irate Wet Wet Wet fan, the first line of which was ‘Dear Bastard’. Which I thought was a great opener.”

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On turning 30: “I sat in Steve’s house on me own and drank some whisky and smoked some fags and watched Tango And Cash on’t telly which was crap, but I really enjoyed meself.”

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On using your imagination because that’s about all we have left: “There aren’t really any new things to discover in life. The same things have obsessed people throughout the centuries. We’re not going to invent a new colour now. So this is all there is. Everything else is your imagination. So use it well.”

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On the upside of boredom: “Boredom can be a big inspiration, because you have to invent something to entertain yourself, otherwise you’ll go crackers.”

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On celebrating ‘Common People’ going to No.2 by falling over onstage: “I was thinking, ‘Fuck me, this is meant to be your ultimate triumph, and you’re flat on your back in a puddle, your eye killing you, face falling off, on a wet Sunday afternoon in Birmingham!’ Not quite what I’d been dreaming of for 20 years.”

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On peeping tommery: “Curiosity is what made sex sexy in the first place. And everyone’s at it now. Life is becoming a spectator sport.”

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On not really being the fount of all knowledge: “Oh, I don’t know the answer to anything, I’m just a silly pop star.”